Philosophy for the Third Millennia

Prologue

I’m just another organism here on this big rock, but I am about to get up on this soapbox, and you really should listen. I’ve got some ideas on what trends are going on in the world right now, and the logical consequences of those trends. I have some thoughts about trends of overpopulation, deforestation, chemical manufacturing, and genetic manipulation, and the logical consequences of these trends. I also have the very distinct feeling that now is the time to act, to counter some of these things. Many people think that it is too late, that the earth is doomed to global warming and eventual poisoning. It will be too late if we delay. If we as generation X fail, we will forever, or at least until the end, be known as the generation that let the world die. It is our destiny to create, and I won’t just lie down and let the wheels turn. I am writing this book for every young person in this country to read. My aim is not to write a lengthy dissertation on everything in the world, but rather to point out some problems, reasons for my beliefs, and propose some solutions. I think everyone should read this book.

I know what’s wrong with the world, but can it be fixed? I honestly don’t know. I only know we have to try. I don’t want to die with the death of the world on my conscience. There are things we can do, ways to contribute to the good, but people simply don’t bother. Many of the things I am about to say are meant to convey a sense of urgency about our situation, and I’m sure that it will scare a lot of people. I want to apologize in advance for any sleep that people lose. The world is a scary place, and I tell it like it is.

My decision to write this book came to me after much deliberation. Ever since I can remember, I’ve had the idea that I wanted to change the world somehow, and the idea for writing this came from that. I had been kicking many ideas about careers around in my head, but I found drawbacks to each of them. The common denominator of the possibilities I considered pursuing was the opportunity to influence the opinions and decisions of other people. I have thought about politics, but I could never grovel for money or compromise myself for the good of any party. I also considered becoming a teacher, to help influence the minds of America’s youth. However, I am afraid that this also is not my calling. I wanted to be able to communicate with everyone. This book is what I feel needs to be communicated to the people of the United States.

There is another section to this book, and that is my personal philosophy. I’ll say a great deal about Christianity and it’s place in the world today, or lack thereof. My philosophy reconciles the world of unexplained phenomenon with the logical Darwinian atheist. However, I am just another organism on this big rock, different only numerically. I don’t claim to have the lock on absolute truth, but Christianity is certainly farther away from the truth than I am. My goal is nothing less than the complete and utter destruction of the political power of the Christian church. Not only are Christians just plain wrong, but their beliefs are standing in the way of the things we need to do to save this planet. Nietzsche, speaking through Zarathustra said, “God is dead, and Christianity killed him.” If we are not careful, Christianity will kill all of us too. I’ll get to my reasons for that rather blasphemous charge later in another chapter.

Now I’m going to introduce myself properly. My name is David James Francis, and I am uniquely qualified and educated to report on the topics of this book. I grew up in Seattle, and attended the University of Washington. For the first couple of years, I intended to enter the business school, so I took economics, political science, and things of that nature. Later, I switched to a focus on history and philosophy. I’ve taken everything from archaeology to astronomy, mostly because I was trying to find myself. It has had the effect of making me see the big picture. That is what this book is about. The big picture.

That doesn’t quite cover who I am though. I’m not defined by the classes I’ve taken in school. I have a family too. I will be eternally grateful to my sister for the time we’ve spent debating Christianity. She became a hard-core Christian several years ago and recently married a man who plans to become a pastor after graduation from Seattle Bible College. My favorite subject to talk about with them is the witch trials of the middle ages (which actually didn’t end until 300 years ago.) Hearing them try to rationalize and squeeze truth from absurdity, truly is the thing that led me away from toleration to outright opposition. I know that Christians are happier believing that they are destined to go to heaven, but it is time that people stopped wasting their time on this crap. There will be no place for puritanical morals in the next millennia. Everything, including morals, time, and truth itself, is relative.

From the time I was born, until I moved out on my own, I lived in the same house. It stands high atop a cliff overlooking Lake Washington. The cliff is very steep, and I have always lived in fear of a landslide or an earthquake. Nothing lasts forever, so I’m glad for the time I had living there. Maybe these last twenty years with the sense of impending doom have something to do with my economic beliefs. I just think it’s ironic. I know that the US economy is in really bad shape, and the current trends are worsening. My grandparents lived through the Great Depression of the 1930’s, but economic chaos in the US today would be a lot scarier. Nobody I know has even considered it a possibility, and yet I know its coming. I’ll tell you why in another chapter, and what you should do to prepare for what’s coming.

Well this is it. My book. I hope it doesn’t keep you up at night worrying. It’s as scary as Stephen King, but its all true. When you read it, keep these words in mind, “organisms of the world, unite!!”

Long-Term Trends

In order to fully understand the way things are, one must look at the long-term trends, and see where we are in relation to them. There are several things I have in mind. When one looks at the long-term trends in different things, we can come to some conclusions about probable futures, although there are only two things we can know for sure. Human nature is self-interested, and things will continue to change.

The trends that I speak of are of many different kinds. Power is possibly the most important thing in the world to us humans being. There are different kinds of power, both political and monetary, and large changes in the balance of power scare everybody, but there will be changes, and lots of them. The world of ideas is in constant flux, and understanding people’s various ideologies, both past and present is essential to seeing their motivation and reasons for their beliefs. Technology has grown exponentially, just in my own short lifetime. What is going to happen in the future? The answer depends on how long the environment holds out. As industry grows, so does pollution in a parallel curve. Also the human population of our planet is growing exponentially, while destroying other species. When one factors in all the trends, and understands truly the way things are now, the United States is a very scary place to be.

The United States is currently the only superpower, much like the Roman Empire or classical Athens were in their respective times. The things that will most easily topple a government are invasion, bankruptcy, internal discontent, or just pissing off your neighbors, which leads to all sorts of troubles. The Romans antagonized the northern Germanic tribes, and thus were repeatedly invaded by them, and eventually fell to them. Several centuries before, the democratic Athenians subjected their neighbors to their rule, and lo and behold, the subject peoples and slaves rose up, and threw off their yoke of oppression. If you think that an invasion if the US is impossible, factor in the facts that our government is nearly bankrupt, is the most hated country on the planet, and that there is tons of enriched uranium on the black market.

The current population trends will lead to certain consequences in our lifetimes as well. A simple experiment can help to illustrate what is going to happen to us in the next century. If you put rats, or any other species in an enclosed area, and allow them to reproduce as fast as they want, eventually there gets to be too many for the environment. They reach a peak population, and then the population takes a nose dive, eventually coming to a stable state where as many as can comfortably and healthily survive do. Human beings are in an enclosed environment too, and already millions of people starve to death each year.

Technology is going to be the hallmark of the twenty-first century. Everything will be computerized, and crime will become a lot harder to get away with. Cash will be replaced with debit cards. That is a really scary thought, because in case of financial disaster, which we are prone for, people could theoretically have their bank accounts erased and have no way of obtaining any money. Also, video cameras on street lights and phone records on the internet, will allow police the ability to enforce any law, no matter how crazy, the government decides to make.

Earlier I said that there are only two things for certain. Human nature is self-interested and that things change. The twentieth century has seen more change than the preceding five millennia. Some things have remained constant however. Our government is still using the same constitution, after making it through the Great Depression, the Civil War, and two world wars. But, as any student of history can tell you, nothing lasts forever. I believe that another civil war is possible, although it won’t be about race or religion. It could well come in the wake of the coming financial disaster. Each and every family in this country owes about $65,000 to the national debt. When the shit hits the fan, and millions of people are forced into starvation and homelessness, who are they going to be mad at? The federal government caused the mess, and I think people will begin to want their individual states to secede from the union, breaking up the US much like the Soviet Union did in 1989.

Power is never in the same hands for very long. In this area of great change, where is there for the US to go but down? These are my beliefs, and my predictions based on historical trends, philosophy, and sociology, and in essence my reason for writing this book. I am a member of Generation X, and I don’t want that to be ironically referred to as the third from last generation. Also, my generation are notoriously known for being slackers, and in the new millennia, that simply won’t suffice. I want this book to be an inspiration to my generation to get off their asses and fix this world before it’s too late. I want for my grandchildren to live to have grandchildren, but as I see it currently, I don’t think that will be possible. Read my words and take them to heart, and get prepared for the collapse of the US, because it will come soon, and nobody likes starvation.

US Economics

Few people understand the dynamics or consequences of the national debt. The reason we are in debt, is because the government sells bonds to make up for the money that they spend and don’t have. Basically, they print money. This money is primarily in the hands of corporations overseas, and for that reason are not in general circulation, and thus not causing inflation. They buy the bonds because of the good interest rate, and the cheap dollar. The instant that it becomes to those bondholder’s interests to sell those bonds, they will spend them in the United States, most likely on real estate. The Fed will be forced to buy the bonds to keep interest rates stable, which means printing money, raising the domestic money supply. This will cause hyperinflation. There are trillions of dollars overseas, and those dollars are not in circulation in the general economy. Having trillions of dollars dumped into the cycle would cause prices to rise exponentially.

The immediate cause for this selling of these bonds will be when investors begin to lose confidence in the ability of the US government to keep the dollar stable, or if a few major bondholders decide to screw the United States. If the government goes into default, or investors think they might, then the selling will begin, probably buying things like real estate, stronger currencies, or gold. After panic sets in, it will continue increasing exponentially.

What will be the consequences of hyperinflation? First, the banks will fail. When the bank gets paid back for their loans in money that is worth less and less, combined with the diminished ability of people to pay off their loans, the banks will go out of business. The US government provides deposit insurance of $100,000 for every person, but the amounts over that will cease to exist. Furthermore, how likely is it that under these conditions, the government will have the means to pay this insurance to depositors?

This could happen in the context of the baby boom retirement crunch that should happen early in the next century. Actually, anything before then could burst the giant speculative bubble, which is currently sucking the air out of the economy and suffocating millions of poor. Right now the ratio of the number of people paying social security taxes is barely enough to support the people collecting. Right now we also pay at least 30% of our incomes to the federal government. By the year 2015, there will be only 2.5 productive taxpayers to support each retired person. There is no way that the US will be able to pay out benefits to retired people in the future. Furthermore, the children of the elderly will be responsible for taking care of their parents. This will be an enormous drain on the economy. The money will have to be spent on health care, rather than other tangible goods.

Economics is a theory that many people don’t think about. I think I should explain the difference and relationship between GNP, transfer payments, and the economy. The total amount of goods and services produced by the US in every year is the total gross national product, or GNP. This is money produced by the economy and represents real wealth. The economy can be artificially manipulated in many ways. One major way is transfer payments. Tax dollars out of everyone’s pockets is transferred to other things, such as welfare, social security, government salaries, subsidy of corporations, defense contracts, and innumerable other things. These payments spread the money out to people to spend in the economy, in the sectors where it is needed. When these transfers decline, the people who would spend that money in the local economy no longer do so. The combined effect of these is enormous. As a country we are very dependent on transfer payments. Just look at what happens to a town when their navy base closes and you can see this principle at work.

When banks give out credit and people don’t repay their loans, or declare bankruptcy, it creates a cumulative drain on the real wealth of the populace. The money came from somewhere. Lenders just lose out if the borrower cannot repay. You may think, “so what, if the banks lose money,” but it has a cumulative effect on the economy. We spend money faster than we produce it. Nearly every person I know is in debt, including myself. The government is in debt to the staggering sum of 5 trillion dollars, which is above the total annual GNP of our country. Think about that. Every citizen in this country currently owes the US bondholders the output of our labor for the production of goods and services for one full year, and that’s at the current GNP. When the GNP falls, which it will, the debt will represent considerably more time repaying. This year, 1996, a record number of people are expected to declare bankruptcy. Understand these concepts, and you realize the extent and the gravity of the situation.

The economy runs in cycles. There are peaks and there are valleys, and they can be charted on a graph. At a glance at that chart, one comes to the conclusion that we are ripe for a hell of a dip. And it seems that as a whole, the country is totally unprepared for the kind of chaos that this will cause. There are many parallels between now, and the giddiness of the 1920’s. Real estate speculation was making some people millions of dollars, and bankrupting many others. Speculation in the stock market became in vogue, and prices got artificially raised because people were willing to pay for them. Today, the Dow Jones average is 300% higher than it was in 1989, and the economy has not even come close to growing that much. It was many factors that caused the great depression, but our country never has had to deal with hyperinflation. That will be a new experience for America.

After Germany lost WWI, it was determined to be at fault by the victors, and as a condition of peace, Germany was forced to pay billions of dollars in reparations to the allies. The war ravaged Germany had no money to pay these excessive fines, so they simply printed money to give to the allies. That money was then spent back in the German economy, and within a very short time, hyperinflation had begun. Their economy was in shambles for a decade, and it was under these conditions that Hitler came to power. People had gotten so desperate, that they wanted a leader who would channel their frustrations. In our situation, hyperinflation is not just possible, it is almost inevitable. I hope that this country doesn’t embrace the crazy philosophy of some madman, but in a country with so many Christians, anything is possible.

Our economy is based largely on the service sector. If there comes a time when people don’t have the money to pay for services, then the whole thing will collapse. Try to envision the United States in this kind of position. Inflation out of control, banks failing, people starving to death, especially in the big cities where food must be shipped in… These are the conditions that will be coming in the next few years, and the apathy of our generation is going to have to change if we are to survive. We are so incredibly unprepared for this, I honestly believe that once it begins, the US economy will crumble into chaos.

How will you react when this happens? People rioting and looting government buildings, individual states demanding to secede from the union because the federal government screwed things up so bad, mass starvation and homelessness… What will you do? Will you participate in the burnings or be the voice of reason? Will you try to break up the country or hold it together? Will you let your neighbors starve, or will you share what you have? In the context of the coming demise of the American economy, we as a generation are going to have to get the country through this on our shoulders. The economy will recover eventually, and then next century will be shaped how we shape it.

I have two big problems with the Republican economic policies. They are right that the US needs a smaller government. We are in debt, and simply cannot afford to pay for the massive bureaucracy anymore. However, they keep talking about tax breaks, and in order to balance the budget and get us out of this hole, we need more taxes, not less. I don’t like to pay taxes, but every family in America owes $65,000 to the debt. We are in debt 5 trillion dollars, and there are less than 300 million people here. The government currently spends 12% of its expenditures on paying the interest on the debt. Soon, the government will have to start repaying the enormous numbers of bonds sold in the 1980’s and that will represent an even higher percentage of tax dollars. The tax break promises are nothing but a big lie that they hope the stupid American people will believe. They know everything I’m saying is true, and their plan is to be able to say, “we told you so!” to the Democrats. When it all collapses and the government goes bankrupt, the Republicans will be able to claim that they tried to stop it, but it was those darn tax and spend democrats that caused the mess. In fact the mess is a legacy of Reaganomics, also known as voodoo economics. When you spend money you don’t have, you eventually have to pay it back. This concept has apparently eluded lawmakers for the past two decades.

The other major economic problem with the Republican platform is the plank of less government regulation on industry. I am a believer in Adam Smith, laissez-faire economics, but there needs to be strong environmental controls on industry. The American Chemical Manufacturers Association is a major contributor to the Republican Party. They make money by polluting our world. In fact, most contributors to the Republicans are special interest groups intent on one thing alone, money. The Republican Party will support anything or pass any law if the pockets of the members are filled adequately by the special interests. They will even support things like the repeal of the safe drinking water act, if compensated enough. I used to work for WASHPIRG, (Washington Public Interest Research Group) and we went door to door telling people that congress was considering repealing the safe drinking water act, among other things. They severely cut the funding for the EPA, and Slade Gordon, Washington State senator, introduced a bill that tried to undermine the current endangered species act, so loggers could finish off the rest of our old growth forests, (as well as the last of the habitat for these various species.) The disturbing thing was that nobody cared. I continually got blank stares from people, or got told to get off their property. People have been listening to the propaganda too long to see the world the way it is. When somebody says, “I think environmental controls have gone too far,” I want to know why they think that! Is it because companies are having just too much trouble polluting, and their cleanup is just eating into their profits too much, or is it more subtle? Is it rather because the lobbyists in congress have persuaded the members to extol this rhetoric? Is it the Spotted Owl that prevents loggers from destroying the last of our natural landscape and habitat? I don’t see how any rational person can take this position. Pollution is widespread, dangerous, and worsening.

We as a country are in trouble economically. The politicians know it. The key to fixing the economy is not in destroying the environment. If we keep polluting at this rate, the oceans will not have any fish in them for our grandkids. What do you think would happen to the economy in a scenario that there was so much pollution that nothing would grow anymore? It wouldn’t matter because we’d all be dead. That is not so outlandish. Think about the trends of growing human population, growing industry, and thus growing pollution. As time passes, these can do nothing but get worse.

US Power

The first thing that a student of history realizes is that nothing lasts forever. Everything is in constant change. The United States is currently the lone superpower in the world, and for that reason, the most vulnerable country on earth. The most important force historically in the 20th century has been nationalism. People began to identify themselves with their countries around the time of the French Revolution. Before that, people generally thought of themselves as the people of a particular city or region. The rise of nationalism has contributed to, if not caused outright, the first and second world wars. I cannot make this point strongly enough, that nationalism is one of the most important components of the power structure of today’s world. Intense nationalism is what allowed Hitler to persuade his countrymen that they were the master race. Nationalism is what allows leaders of countries to make war, and make the people support it, believing it to be patriotically motivated rather than some other reason.

Contrary to this nationalistic trend, many countries in the world are now forming trade blocs. In Europe, the EC was formed to compete with the US, and shut the US out of their trading. Japan had the same idea before World War Two. They were trying to create a kind of Japan led trading bloc called the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. In order to compete with the US these regions were and are trying to attain the necessary population, area, and natural resources available for their industries. Needless to say that the people in other countries are not very pleased with the US position as the big kahuna.

Imagine that you are a man or woman living in some third world country. Do you think it’s fair that your children starve to death and the children in America play video games and surf the internet? Do you think that the greenhouse effect, which is being caused at least partly by American industry is fair? You receive all of the negatives (pollution, species extinction) and receive none of the benefits of prosperity elsewhere in the world. It is no surprise to me to see the US flag and our leaders burned in effigy by the mobs in these countries. They hate us.

The US used to have competition at the number one spot in the form of the Soviet Union. Now, that country has disintegrated and their economy is in shambles. They still do have a lot of bombs though. That really scares me. I know how to build an atomic bomb. It’s not that difficult. All you need is enriched uranium 235. Enriching it is the hard part, and the USSR has done that and created lots of weapons grade uranium. That is slowly becoming available on the black market, and it won’t be long until some maniac accumulates 35 kilograms of the stuff. That is all you need to make a bomb.

For these reasons, I am of the opinion that some major US city will get nuked by some third world country sometime in the future. I have given a lot of thought to where the most logical place would be for them. Maybe I am just crazy and paranoid, (which does tend to happen in people who spend their whole lives living on the edge of a cliff…) but I believe that Seattle would be a very likely target. This is the home of Boeing, the country’s largest airplane manufacturer. Also, Seattle is the home of Microsoft, a company that represents to the people of these nations the technological advancement of the US and thus the disparity between our countries. Seattle is also the largest trading port in the US with the far east. It doesn’t have the large population that a Los Angeles or New York have, and there is a huge Navy base just across the water in Bremerton. Washington DC could be a target, but military men have honor. There wouldn’t be as likely, for the same reason that we haven’t bombed Saddam Hussein’s personal residence in Baghdad. During the Cold War, more nuclear missiles were pointed at Seattle than anywhere else. I also want to move out of Seattle for earthquake reasons, but that’s another chapter.

In 1996 the United States fired missiles and started another confrontation with Iraq. The mission that should forever be known as the war to re-elect Bill Clinton. Bob Dole accused Clinton of not doing anything when Hussein massacred a Kurdish faction, so Clinton acted… Iraq is a sovereign nation. They don’t think that they should have to listen to the US about anything. They were acting in their own best interest when the Iraqi military massacred the Kurdish faction. The two factions were at war, and one side allied with Iran. Iraq didn’t want them in power, and recognized it was necessary to destroy the faction friendly to Iran. The Iraqis never violated any international law or UN resolution. They also never brought planes into the US imposed no-fly zone. Granted that this is not the nicest way to go about handling the situation, but Hussein really had no other choice, given the position he was in. Iran and Iraq are mortal enemies.

Other countries see this from Hussein’s perspective as well. Who is the United States to declare that the era of human rights abuse is over? Why can they abuse and deny sovereignty to a country half way across the world? How many people in the world would like to see the US get nuked? One fifth? That is still roughly five people for every person in this country. Nothing lasts forever. Every hegemony ends, change is inevitable, and in this century, change has been the one true constant. Nothing is certain, but the army of Allah may yet destroy the United States. One wouldn’t need a stronger army to bring the US to it’s knees, just a few nuclear bombs for some large cities.

Another problem with this military action against Iraq, is the fact that war costs money. Every missile that we fire at them costs 1.2 million dollars. Economically, the government cannot afford its current expenditures. Those expenditures are not even factoring the costs of a war on the other side of the globe. Am I the only one feeling the entire world teetering on the precipice? Whatever does happen, Americans simply won’t be ready for it.

The environmental impact of 21st century war will defy imagining. Nuclear reactors could be likely targets which, when destroyed, will send enormous amounts of radioactive debris into the stratosphere. Intentional poisoning of land, sea, and air could become commonplace. How do we prevent this? Put very simply, we don’t go to war or provoke hatred of us. That is easy to say, but the fact is that we have already provoked the intense hatred of billions of people. We can only hope to dissolve that, and not produce any more. We also need to help to promote peace and tranquility throughout the world. Sometimes there is no perfect solution. Both the Jews and Palestinians were promised the land that is now Israel, for supporting the British in World War Two. In Bosnia, groups with simmering hatred going back millennia continue to kill each other in an attempt at ethnic cleansing. Compromises must be made, and peace must be enforced. That, however should be the role of the UN, and not the United States. We already have too much power in the eyes of the world. We must be careful, lest it be ripped away from us by force.

Environment

If we humans do not kill each other off in entirety, then we will be victims of the environmental pollution we caused. I am reminded of the words attributed to Chief Seattle, who said to the whites, “you will suffocate in your waste.” We manufacture chemicals like bleach and rat poison, spill massive amounts of oil into our oceans, obliterate entire species on a daily basis, destroy old growth forests, and manufacture viruses that can kill nearly every human on the planet. I was in the store the other day and saw smoked salmon and CD ROM computer games at the checkout counter, and realized that in the future when all the fish have died, these will be looked at as the last days of the world of nature. We as a generation can either do something about it, or become resigned to our fate as the generation that let the world die.

All the bleach, acetone, paint thinner, gasoline, Drano, and other chemicals that have ever been produced are here, in our environment in one form or another. When they go down the drain, or evaporate, they enter the general environment of all of us. They just get diluted, but more and more is always produced. I always see advertisements on TV designed to raise public opinion for the American Chemical Manufacturer’s Association. They say things like they’ve cut down the amount of chemicals released into the atmosphere during manufacture. Well where do the chemicals they produce go?

The carbon cycle used to be in a delicate equilibrium, but now it is in total chaos. Before we started burning fossil fuels and burning down the forests, there was a balance. Plants produced oxygen and ate carbon dioxide, and animals did the opposite. Now, there are less plants to eat the carbon dioxide, and more carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere. Global warming is one danger of this trend, but there are others as well. Deforestation, desertification, and the depletion of the ozone layer continues daily. Where do these trends lead us to, and what can we do about it? All we can do is try our hardest not to destroy ourselves.

The human race has only one predator that it must worry about other than themselves, and that is viruses. Genetic manipulation has created strains that are incredibly contagious, and almost always fatal. Furthermore, viruses and bacteria reproduce at a rate much faster than humans, so genetic mutations happen much faster. That is why many diseases are becoming resistant to antibiotic medications. Drug resistant diseases are going to be just one more danger of life in the next century.

Geophysics

I enrolled in an applied seismology class, and what I am about to say was told to me by a geophysics professor at the University of Washington. The Puget Sound region will experience a major earthquake within the next five years. This will probably include mountain building, possibly volcanic activity, and most likely the total annihilation of Seattle’s infrastructure.

The fact is that seismologists cannot predict the day, or even the year that an earthquake will happen. They can, however, do a lot of research to accurately predict when, where, and the severity of earthquakes. In California and Japan, the tectonic plates slide fairly easily. Pressure builds, and then releases without too much force. Try telling that to a resident of Kobe or San Francisco though. The fact is that in those places, you would never see an earthquake rated over 7.5 on the Richter scale.

The seismologists can send radio signals into the ground to measure the pressure of the plates. They can know how big an earthquake is likely to be by measuring the deflection of the signal, which corresponds to the pressure in the ground. The ground under Seattle has more pressure built up than any other place on the planet. Seattle is prime for a 9.2 rated earthquake. It is common knowledge that a 7.0 will do major damage to a city. The thing is, that the Richter scale is a logarithmic scale. An 8.0 is 10 times stronger than a 7.0, and so on. If a 7.2 is enough to cause serious damage, what will one 100 times as strong do?

Now once the seismologists find how much pressure there is, there is still the problem of prediction. When will it happen? While they cannot say exactly, they know the signs to look for. Small tremors are a very bad sign. They indicate that the plates are beginning to slip, and usually, when there is a lot of pressure built up, the major earthquake will follow soon after. Seattle has had several small tremors including three noticeable ones within the last two years.

Seattle in undeniably a great city to live in. People generally love it there, and nobody wants to leave their families, friends, and lives for something as irrational as fear of an earthquake. I would strongly recommend, however to anyone interested in self-preservation, to move away from the Puget Sound region. A major earthquake and volcanic eruption can ruin your whole day.

Environmental Politics

Humans pollute this planet. This planet is an enclosed environment. There is a limit to how much pollution the world can take before the soil will no longer produce food enough for the inhabitants to eat and survive. I do not believe that these claims can be disputed by anybody with an ounce of sanity. The question is not whether we will reach that limit, but when it will happen. There is a maximum biological yield of every species in any environment. We humans have through science, raised the limit on ourselves, but not taken it away. There are over 5 billion people on this planet, and the number, if it climbs at the same rate, will double again in something like 30 years. Today, as a whole, the world’s cities are stuffed and overcrowded with millions of poor laborers in horrible living conditions. If you seriously look at the trends and where they lead, what is your analysis of the situation?

I do not wish to have people conclude that the answer to this problem is genocide. The urge to be violent in any form just be stopped with every person on this planet. There can be no violence, especially international, or race or religion related conflict, if we are to survive as a planet. The reason is because violence begets more violence. Humans always resist attack, and want revenge for past wrongs. Because of alliances in the 20th century, two world wars have erupted from small localized conflicts and aggressions. Also, war has become progressively more destructive. Beginning with the United States Civil War, and through World War Two, the technology employed by humans to kill each other got progressively better and better. The technology got even better when scientists figured out how to fission uranium 235. It got even better when Teller realized that he could use an atomic bomb to ignite some lithium deuteride, producing fusion, and an even larger explosion. Total war has meant annihilation for a long time now. I don’t think this is anything new. These truths have been known by the American people for a long time. So why do we as a nation pursue policies that cause other nations to passionately hate us?

Given the trends of population and pollution, and the premises that overcrowding causes friction, and that violence escalates, I see quite a precarious situation. There is only one option for our survival. The people, especially the leaders of the world need to embrace pacifism entirely. Past wrongs must be forgotten and worked out, and a worldwide system to pump food into the poor starving regions of the world must be implemented. Many thousands of people in other countries who starve to death see the irony; that the reason the US doesn’t produce more food for the starving of other nations, is that if it produces more, the prices will fall. That land could be producing food for the starving of other nations, but the Americans are as a whole, selfish capitalists who determine their actions largely by market forces, rather than the starving millions. We are unwilling to allocate the funds for feeding the starving people, when we have billions for defense contracts. This is precisely what we need to do. The people of the world have to set aside nationalism, racism, separatism, and other harmful parasites of society. We need to work together to get through what will be a tremendous calamity in the future. Whatever term you assign to the coming event, (cataclysm, collapse, judgment, fragmentation, disintegration…) it doesn’t matter. When it happens, there are going to be a lot of people mad at us. Those people will have guns, bombs, airplanes, and tanks.

We are entering what is probably the most precarious time in our planet’s history. Not since the Cuban Missile Crisis have we been so close to the edge of oblivion. If we do not dispel enormous amounts of bad karma very soon, our co-inhabitants on this planet are going to get fed up and decide to throw off what they consider the oppression of the United States. Violence begets more violence. The end will become reality. This must not happen.

Religion

Traditionally, the one problem that philosophers have had with Frederich Nietzsche is that he could tear down Christianity, but didn’t have much of a positive philosophy to replace it with. His idea of the “overman” was just people in charge of their own destinies, rather than letting their fates be determined by outside factors. In science there is the same dilemma. People are great at tearing down hypotheses, but proposing new ones, therein lies the hard part. In this chapter, I intend to demolish Christianity, because it is false and harmful to the world. In the next, I shall propose my own positive philosophy.

On the surface, Christianity seems harmless enough. People believe in their ideas about the afterlife, and eternal love, and it makes them happy. In every human civilization that has ever existed on this planet, there has been a prevalent idea of some greater power than the human being. People need to believe that there is some purpose for their existence, and the idea of mortality scares people to death. The humanistic drive to believe in a higher power is very strong, and for that reason, Christianity has been tolerated by the non-believing masses for a very long time. The time has come for that to change.

There are two major reasons why I want to convince people that Christianity is harmful, rather than just plain wrong. First, the Christian believes in the afterlife, and in the pending judgment day of the earth. I was talking to my sister a while ago about the environment, and the pattern of increasing pollution. She told me that she knew that was happening, and that was God’s plan, and that judgment day was coming and that she was unafraid to die. As a rule there is a mentality among Christians that there is nothing we can do about the sins of the world, and we as a species are about to be judged. There is no attitude more detrimental to those of us who want to save the planet than that. It is ourselves that we need to worry about, not God. We cannot do anything about God’s plan, but we can take action here on earth.

The other problem I have with Christianity is that their puritan morality is not applicable in today’s world. Not only is it against abortion, which helps overpopulation, it is against the movement to legalize the growth of hemp for industrial purposes. Hemp can be made into particle board, cloth, rope, paper, and even can run an automobile. It also grows about 50 times faster than trees, and one acre of hemp has about the same output of paper pulp as an acre of old growth forest. Yet industrial hemp is outlawed because the Christians think that the plant is evil incarnate, because one can smoke a closely related plant and get high. The reason it was outlawed in the first place was because the south was in bad shape after reconstruction, and the main crop was cotton. Cotton’s main rival, hemp, it was found, was being smoked by certain “undesirables” like Indians and blacks, and it would induce certain physiological responses in them. There was a famous case of a black man supposedly raping a white woman, supposedly under the influence of marijuana. They used this as a reason, to legitimize their agenda to outlaw hemp for the good of the cotton, logging, and tobacco industries. It wasn’t long until the Christian southerners had hemp outlawed as an illegal drug, mostly for the purpose of helping their industries. Today there still is an alliance between the Christians and the business interests that want hemp to remain illegal.

The constitution of the United States is written on hemp paper. George Washington grew hemp. We have already destroyed almost all of the old growth forest in the US, and that habitat for animals cannot be replaced with a tree farm. Hemp would be a huge industry, and good for the environment. If I were a “pro-growth” (read anti-environment) Republican, I could support this. Unfortunately, the Republican Party is so heavily influence by the Christian right that this could never be possible. One would be labeled as “pro drug use by children” by the Christians.

The apocalyptic prophesies of the Christians, as well as their opposition to the legalization of industrial (not recreational) hemp, makes them simply against what needs to be done to save our planet. They don’t care about the environment because they’re saved. Well, they’re just plain wrong. Over 100 years ago, Frederich Nietzsche was incredibly annoyed that the human race had advanced so far, and still had not rejected Christianity. He wrote book after book totally slamming Christianity, and everything he said is true, but yet they still remain entrenched into our society.

Possibly the most frustrating thing about Christians is that no matter how much you prove to them that they are wrong, they just keep shoving the square pegs into the round holes. Aside from the fact that the Christian philosophy is simply not intuitive, there are many other reasons that make belief in it impossible to the logical mind. First, it is logically impossible for the Christian God to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. This is known as the problem of evil to the Christians. Evil exists in the world. This is not the best of all possible worlds, so it follows that God cannot be both all powerful and all good, or their wouldn’t be evil in the world. The Christian response to this is that God, in his infinite wisdom, has granted us freewill, and it is us that create the evil in the world. Their argument runs into a vicious circularity in that if God has omnipotent power, omniscient knowledge, and is omnibenevolent, why does the create the people who create evil?

Another problem is that if God has omnipotent knowledge, and he creates every human, he knows whether or not they will believe in God before they are ever born. If this is true, then he condemns to eternal damnation all the souls that he creates that he knows won’t believe in God. God would know this in advance if he were truly omniscient. If a Christian retorts here that people have freewill, and can be converted at any time, he is committed to facing the ugly truth that God must not be omniscient, and has no idea what the future holds.

The current philosophy of the Christians has nothing to do with the Christian church for the first 1500 years of it’s existence. Their beliefs are totally different. The philosophy today is that if you believe in God, and that Jesus was the son of God, and that Jesus died for your sins, and you have a personal relationship with him, then when you die, you will go to heaven. If you don’t believe all that, then you will go to hell when you die. This belief is a direct result of Martin Luther’s particular interpretation of a particular verse in the bible. “…because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.” (Romans 1:16) Before that, people could get into heaven by going on a crusade and killing some Muslims, or by giving a lot of money to the church. They just found a better way to control people, scaring them into at least pretending that they believed, lest they not be broken on the wheel, or burned at the stake. It was scarcely 300 years ago that the last witch burning took place in what was then the English colony of Salem.

Christianity has always been a means to political power. There is a problem when power is held by a group as intolerant and disconnected from reality as the Christians. They claim to be ruled by spirituality, but in actuality their lives are ruled by dogma thousands of years old, as well as delusions and brainwashing. The bible can be interpreted in so many ways, and none has the lock on absolute truth. There is a difference between spirituality and dogma. Dogma is the set of things that you must believe on faith, simply because other people say so and it was written down long ago. Dogma is what I reject, totally and completely. Spirituality is a force existent in every person, regardless of religion. A person in touch with his or her spirituality will look upon the beauty of the world and be moved by it. I get shivers when I hear Beethoven’s ninth. To me, that song is spirituality incarnate, but I am a music lover. Others get the same sensation from viewing nature. Spirituality is the capacity to know your place in the world, and comprehend the beauty of the world. It exists, regardless of dogma. When people claim that the dogma in which they believe is the only route to spirituality, they cheapen and devalue spirituality, which is truly different for every person on the planet.

It was the Christians who put Galileo on trial for his life, for proposing a heliocentric universe. It was the Christians who enslaved millions of African people, merely two centuries ago, because they had a different kind of spirituality. The search for knowledge is the original sin, the root of all sin, for nothing is scarier to the pastor than the intelligent and informed parishioner. Faith means not wanting to know what is true. For two millennia, the Christian church has ruled through terror, and an iron fist. The threat of eternal damnation, and the fictional promise of eternal bliss was never enough, so they had to use terror in this life as well. Today, I can say these things without fear of being burned alive, broken on the wheel, or drawn and quartered, but the church still has a firm grip on millions of people in this country. Christianity is the worst pitfall to happen to mankind so far. Christianity has produced more suffering, killed more people, and slowed the growth of science more than any other force in world history.

I don’t wish to belittle the humanitarian works that Christianity has done over the millennia, because there have been many. I think Jesus was a great man. He preached to his followers to love their enemies and to turn the other cheek. He was however not divine, and the church that has sprung up from his wisdom has been and remains corrupt, intolerant, and wholly incorrect.

Dimensions

This is possibly the hardest concept to explain in the world, because our minds simply cannot grasp an understanding of other dimensions. First, I’ll make the distinction between objective and subjective reality. Subjective reality is the way plants, animals, or humans experience life. It is different for everybody, because nobody has the same experiences. Animals and insects have their own reality in the subjective sense. They experience things, and have certain drives, loves, and important things to them. The world is ruled by the subjective. Now if God existed, he would know objective reality. That includes everything that has ever happened, every chemical reaction, every synaptic transfer, every minute action that has ever happened anywhere in the universe. Nobody knows much objective reality, because everything is subjective, and filtered through our experiences, mood, and background knowledge to become our understanding of the event.

There is a book called “Chariots of the Gods”, written by Erich VonDaniken, the thesis of which is that aliens from other planets influenced early earth history. He cited many examples of drawings resembling spacecraft and aliens, as well as comparisons of numerous religious writings and myths. The Greek god Zeus rode in a chariot in the sky. The bible says that man was made in God’s image. VonDaniken’s book was dismissed as pseudoscience, mostly because of the disturbing consequences of his book. He was close, but he didn’t see the whole picture.

Even today, we hear of alien abductions and incredibly intricate crop circles mysteriously appearing. People see unworldly aircraft flying in the sky, and there have been numerous reports of landings, and communication by aliens to the people on the ground. Many people deny the truth of these reports, but nobody can deny that the people who have experience these things, seem them with their own eyes, truly believe that what they’re saying is true. The message that consistently is telepathically communicated to people on the ground is that the earth is headed for a major disaster, and that something must be done to stop it.

Descriptions of these craft consistently portray the same “flying saucer” design. Further, they don’t have the design of something that would be capable of interplanetary travel. Such a voyage at light speed from the nearest solar system would take 4 years, assuming they could go that fast, and that they are from there. These small craft simply don’t have the design of something that could both have the power to make the voyage, and the ability to sustain life aboard it for that length of time. That is because they are not interplanetary craft. They are from the future.

I believe that there is an enormous disaster headed for the human race, and the whole planet in general. This disaster is going to be such that the future humans evolve into the large eyed creatures that many people think are from other planets. What would cause this kind of genetic mutation? Nuclear war? Genetic manipulation? I think ‘alien’ abductions are being done to collect healthy DNA from humans and animals, because of the polluted environment and gene pool of the future.

Most people’s minds cannot comprehend the physics of time travel. Einstein was the first to find that everything, even time is relative. His experiment, done with the help of the US Navy went horribly awry, and became infamously known as the Philadelphia Experiment. They accelerated the particles around a manned US Navy ship above the speed of light, and the entire ship disappeared from the horizon for three minutes. When the ship re-appeared, many of the soldiers had re-materialized partially or entirely into the walls or hull of the ship. Those men that lived came back as vegetables. The great physicist Steven Hawking wrote a book called “A Brief History of Time” in which he explains how this is theoretically possible. There is even a movie explaining the key concepts of the book if you haven’t the patience to read it. It basically comes down to the fact that in physics equations, time can be manipulated by increasing speed. If this is not intuitive to you, don’t be surprised. It takes a mind like Einstein or Hawking to really comprehend it.

As a thought experiment, meditate on how your actions, your every decision affects the future. Where you decide to work, go to school, eat, live, and your interactions with friends, family, and total strangers all influence to some degree what will happen in the future. Every thing and everyone on this planet affects everything and everyone else. It is such a vast concept to grasp; the human mind is not omniscient, and since we cannot know everything, the concept of dimensions eludes most people.

The present is now. The future is fluid and ever-changing. It can be manipulated, but it is completely unavoidable. Every possible future exists in its own dimension. It is collectively up to each of us to decide which path to take, but there is no one mind actually making the decision. The world is ruled by the subjective. Objective reality is like the number infinity. It doesn’t really exist, although we know it’s there. It is impossible to comprehend, because when you perceive something you filter it through your past experiences, your mood, alertness, and ability to comprehend it. Pieces of objective reality can be known. For example, the fact that I am currently writing this on my computer could be observed, in fact anything can be observed, but at the same instant, trillions of other events, mental and physical, micro and macro, are going on that you have no way of knowing about. My point is that you cannot know anything about anything you haven’t observed. Our reality is based solely on our individual perceptions, and our synthesis of and conclusions drawn from those perceptions.

Since nobody can comprehend objective reality, which can be defined as the real universe, is it such a stretch that an incomprehensible and unobservable idea like dimensions truly exist? The powers that be have embarked on a misinformation campaign to make anyone who talks about these things sound like a lunatic. They would have you believe that the Philadelphia Experiment didn’t happen. They would have you believe that a weather balloon crashed in Roswell. They would have you believe that the appearance of incredibly intricate crop circles with no paths leading away are the works of pranksters. They are less interested in protecting us from the truth, than protecting themselves from the informed masses. If everybody knew and believed this, their hold on power would be in serious jeopardy. They have their reasons for suppressing the truth, but the truth remains, only slightly discolored by state sponsored lunacy.

Some Conclusions

There have been two very different schools of philosophy that existed the previous two millennia. One was based on conquest, intimidation, fear, and personal gain. The other, based on contemplation, toleration, wisdom, karma, and renunciation of physical wealth. Western thought, and thus it’s people have tended toward warfare, while Eastern peoples spent less energy on killing each other, and more on contemplative meditation. The one thing I would like to see is a collective shift toward more eastern philosophy in the minds of the world. Think about every action you do. “How will I affect others or create chaos?” When you throw something away, recycle it! Don’t dump oil or other chemicals into the drain. Don’t eat fish, because if the market demands it, we will exterminate the oceans. Don’t hurt others, or they will hurt still others, or the pain can affect the world in other ways. Always remember that we, (meaning all organisms are all interconnected.

These things I’ve mentioned are entirely too general. Where are the concrete answers? What can we do pro-actively to fix our planet? The first step is becoming a recycle freak and environmental extremist. If everyone was conscientious, it would be a tremendous help. The fact is, that most people aren’t, and if we are to save the planet, that needs to change.

The government has the power to do a lot to help the situation, but it currently is not. The government is run by politicians who get their campaign contributions from big business interests. Money makes the world go around, and there isn’t very much money in strict environmentalism. The government should outlaw logging of all old growth forests, and all forests on government lands. It should also outlaw certain fishing practices to save fish for later generations. This restriction on fishing and logging would not need to be permanent, but it needs to be done to help build the severely declining populations of fish and North American wildlife, currently on the brink of extinction. A resounding cry is heard from the loggers and fishermen, “What about our jobs, our livelihoods!?” My answer to them is simply, deal with it. Loggers and fishermen are bombarded by the rhetoric that the environmentalists are trying to deny them a living. Many fail to see that there are other career options. If I made the laws, I would severely restrict these industries, and provide aid and retraining for the displaced workers. Their energies could be used for something positive, or at least not destructive. The law that states that because humans have big brains and opposable thumbs, that gives them the right to destroy other species at will, is hereby annulled. They are destroying and depleting our natural resources, and all other species of life on this planet, and have been doing so for a long time. Today, we have passed the time when that was acceptable. As I see it, they will deny my grandchildren the existence of their grandchildren, or possibly me the existence of my grandchildren. If you had to make a choice, would you want to either save the planet’s resources for the future, or give loggers and fishermen free rein to destroy it for your children? We determine the future today.

We can do without fish, and we can do without the wood from government lands. actually, restricting the harvesting of those trees would drive the price of wood up, so the money would still be there for the mills and harvesters of threes on private land. If we keep going at the current rates, the seas will be devoid of animal life, and hundreds more species of North American wildlife will be extinct by the middle of the next century. The person that replies that jobs are more important is either incredibly ignorant, or has in some way been bought by the polluters and destroyers. Everything in the world is interconnected. There is a web of life. If a species goes extinct, the species that uses the first for food will also die off. Think about the consequences of everything. Where do the current trends lead us, and how can we change them?

There is one other thing that would tremendously help the environmental and economic situation, and that is the legalization and cultivation of industrial hemp. The forces opposed to this are industries like cotton, logging, makers of synthetic fabrics, and oil, or anybody who thinks that hemp is evil because of the psychedelic properties of a totally different species of plant. Who controls the politicians? The people? The best interests of the country, or is it these big business interests and the Christians?

The advantages of legalization of industrial hemp are numerous. It grows extremely rapidly, which absorbs carbon dioxide and produces oxygen. It can be made into rope, cloth, particle board, or methanol to fuel cars. While it would cut into some industries’ market shares, it would have a tremendous positive net impact on the economy. The environment needs to be here for the future, and our forests are the habitat for other species. The world supply of oil is running out, and other energy sources need to be explored. Further, fossil fuels are either burned into our atmosphere or spilled into our oceans. When methanol burns, it produces only carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and water vapor, while gasoline produces countless other toxic vapors to be sent into the atmosphere. The American people can override the business interests if they want to, but they must be informed as to who is controlling these laws, and why, and the advantages of hemp. The hemp legalization movement has had a reputation for being a bunch of pot smoking hippies, and thus has little credibility with the American public. I am not advocating that we legalize the drug, although it does have legitimate medical uses. The fact is, that marijuana produces apathy, makes it so people just don’t care, and that’s the last thing we as a country need.

There are some other bits of advice I have for the people of the world. Basically, preparation is the rule. What will you do when the economy collapses? The economy is going to go through some hard times in the near future, and there is an overwhelming naiveté about how we will get through it. To have your assets in the forms of cash, stocks, bonds, or bank accounts are all suspect. Real estate, gold, durable goods, and tangible assets will be the only things of real value. When the economy hits the downslide, the prices of these will rise, and for that reason now is the time to get your assets into these commodities. I don’t wish to start a run on the banks, but precisely the opposite. If people gradually start taking these measures, the effect won’t be as bad as if everybody did it all at once.

The United States is known as the breadbasket to the world. We do produce a lot of food here, enough to export billions of dollars worth each year. The problem won’t be having enough food to go around, but rather being able to afford it. However, a couple of nuclear blasts could change that. When the prices rise, people are going to have to spend their money on the same things, but the money won’t go nearly as far. The average family has to pay for rent, food, clothing, and miscellaneous other bills, transportation, and countless other goods and services. The average family also has little savings, is heavily in debt, and is living from paycheck to paycheck. Soon the day will come when more and more people will have to decide between rent and food. When people lose their jobs because businesses fail, there will be no relief for them. The homeless population will increase exponentially, with a corresponding increase in crime. What are you going to do about it? Tighten your belt and deal with it.

It is hard to say how to prepare for earthquake, war, environmental, economic, and societal chaos. Nobody knows for sure what will happen, but the signs point in these directions. All we can do is our best, and that, my brothers and sisters, may or may not be enough. We are all individuals, and each person makes their own decisions. Each person determines their own path. Your survival will be contingent on the decisions you make, the possible future that you decide to take. In fact, all of our survival is dependent on each of us. We are all members of this society, interconnected yet individual.

Throughout my life, I’ve found two general laws of the universe to hold true most of the time. These are Murphy’s Law, and karma. Whatever can go wrong, will; and that your good and bad deeds come back to you eventually. As a country we’ve committed genocide against the native inhabitants of this land, enslaved millions of African people against their will, and dropped two nuclear bombs on civilian cities. That’s not mentioning the thousands of other injustices, deaths, and other horrors caused either directly or indirectly by the American government and its people. You may believe that our democratic nation is morally superior to other forms of government, but with democracy, the worst kind of tyranny can be imposed on the minority by the majority. Democracy does not equal good. We are an imperialist bully. We do not have good karma. We do have a strong military. Currently that is the only thing saving us from destruction.

Don’t’ think that I am in any way advocating warfare of any kind, because I am not. War solves nothing except overpopulation. I wish to promote peace, brotherhood, love, and greater understanding between organisms of all religions, races, countries, backgrounds, and species. If we examine people’s motivations, try to see things from their perspectives, we gain an insight into their truth. Truth is relative to every individual, and we as citizens of this planet need to become more compassionate and less self-interested. It’s too bad that our free market system is based on self-interest. The people need to realize that compassion is in their self interests. Each individual needs to stop contributing to the enormous cloud of black karma currently hanging over America.

I wish to be the founder of, and coin the term, ‘organismism’, a worldwide movement to set aside nationalism, racism, and religious differences, and to forget about injustices of the past. We cannot change the past, only the future. We need to focus on the present, the problem at hand, and the solutions. There are countless border disputes, injustices, and philosophical differences between the countries of the world. The rational mind, however, should realize that these issues shouldn’t matter when all of our survival is at stake. I want to live, and I want every other living being to live as well. There is a solution, but we have to have the courage to do what needs to be done. Our survival depends on our actions today.

Beyond that, I can only say to live life to the fullest, because tomorrow we may all be looking back at the present as the last days of technology and nature. Nobody knows what the future holds. This is all merely informed conjecture, but if one syllable of what I’ve said is true, what are the consequences? Think about it.